Museums Dust Out Their Attics to Become High-Tech Exhibit-Preservation Centers

75-567847 is quite comfortable at Harvard University.

For nearly six centuries, the wool doll fashioned in the form of a weaver rested in a cool and dry Chanchay Indian crypt on the central coast of Peru.

It now bears a catalogue number and sits on a metal shelf in the climate-controlled attic of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Although the nearly 2 million artifacts that fill the Peabody’s back rooms are rarely viewed by the public, museum curators from around the world have become fascinated by the transformation of the storage areas from musty chaos to a state-of-the-art sanctuary.

“This is the way it used to be,” said assistant ethnology collections manager Kathy Skelly, gesturing toward a rack of boxes containing an unrelated assortment of relics. “It was a mess.”

The boxes, however, are the final link with the Peabody’s cluttered past.

A nearly completed 10-year project to renovate and modernize the museum’s storage areas has led to precise and innovative preservation tactics.

Large artifacts are kept in rooms where temperature and humidity are tailored to protect various materials. Small items are encased in acid-free mounts, which allow researchers to view but not touch objects. The tile floors are spotless. Motion alarms and sprinklers hang from the ceilings.

“People have the impression that the back rooms of museums look like their attics at home,” said collections manager Una MacDowell. “That was somewhat true in the past, but I think what you see at the Peabody will be the trend in the future.”

In mid-October, about 30 curators and executives with the New England Museum Assn. toured the Peabody’s storage facilities, said MacDowell. Curators from around the world regularly inquire about its preservation efforts, she added.

“I tell them the key is funding,” said MacDowell. “A lot of developing countries are interested in trying to improve the way they store artifacts they see as an important part of their national heritage.

“It’s just not possible if you do not commit the funding.”

The approximate $2.5 million upgrading of the Peabody’s storage rooms, funded by Harvard and the National Science Foundation, is one of the most comprehensive efforts at artifact preservation, said assistant director Rosemary Joyce.

Joyce said similar programs have been sponsored at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Bernice Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

In a building older than some of the objects it houses, the problems of preservation were compounded at the Peabody, said MacDowell.

In the summer, the attic was stifling. Objects stored in the basement levels were plunged into a chill throughout the winter, she added.

“We finally achieved a stable environment for our collection and that is very important,” said MacDowell.

“Put it this way,” said assistant archeology collections manager Susan Bruce, “We’re happy and the artifacts are happy.”

Bruce led a team of experts which examined the Peabody’s collection of nearly 1,000 pre-Columbian Andean textiles.

The textiles, once stacked like the wares of a rug merchant, are now layered between specially treated paper.

“Very few museums have anything close to this,” said Bruce. “It’s something that the public doesn’t see, but it’s a vital part of what a museum should be about.”

In a nearby room, with a climate modified for wood and leather objects, Skelly walked up an aisle studying the collection.

She passed Plains Indian feather headdresses and clubs from South Pacific islands. Across the aisle, dozens of 85-year-old Chinese figurines were arranged to depict a funeral procession.

“And here is one of our treasures,” said Skelly, stopping at a carved wood stool beaten by New Guinea tribal leaders during important decrees.

MacDowell later banged on a metal table top.

“We’re finally moving into the 20th century,” she said.